This year easily. Why? While we're better able to "plan" for it during an offseason, this year is supposedly year three of a four-year plan. This year we have a rookie quarterback, and if you'll remember to week one this year, nobody had very high expectations of us doing anything, especially not the playoffs. And while this year we're still in the driver's seat with regards to getting into the playoffs, would you sacrifice four games of a really good run next year, or four games in a season where we appear to be almost - but not quite - in contention?

World Champion Seattle Seahawks football. It's an addiction, and there is no cure.Les Norton - gone but never forgotten. Rest in blue and green peace, my friend.

This year. After the Bears game. We play two very good receivers in the next two weeks, Marshall and Fitz, we might as well try and cover Marshall with the guys we have now. Hope we survive against Fitz and a bad QB in a home game, and then the are no other elite WR's on the slate.

If we make the playoffs we have both back and if not we don't have it hanging over next season. No distractions and our defense can be ready to take the next step.

Next year, give Lane/Thurmond/whoever you want to cover them 1st team reps in the offseason and preseason and they'll be ready to cover from week 1-4.If Sherman and Browner are as good as we think they are, they don't need the reps for anything other than match fitness.Then they come in at week 5 completely refreshed and if we've made it through the first 4 games, we're in great shape, if we haven't, we've got 12 games to fix it.Lose them now without a plan B and it could cost us the season, whilst we might not be in shape to get to the superbowl right now (I still think this is a team BUILT for playoff games), playoff experience is far more beneficial than having the team in great shape next year (think about it, if it wasn't, we'd have let the Rams beat us in 2010, finish 6-10 and grabbed the number 7 overall pick (based on our weaker strength of schedule, which would have been even with the 49ers, but we'd still have had the tiebreaker as SF would have won 4 divisional games to our 3).

That would have put us in a much better shape for rebuilding and thus a better shape for the season

This year. After the Bears game we have some relatively soft teams other than SF and RW can air it out a little more if we have to in order to keep up. We can still make the playoffs and we'd have BB and Sherm back for the post season.

Then, when we win the Superbowl everyone will say how we did it with CB's that cheat and that will give them more motivation for next year.

Next year. You can tweak personnel, get the subs some reps, and the other host of reasons that have been stated above.

Plus, if you have a shot at the playoffs, you take it. You don't know what could happen in the next year. We've been incredibly lucky on the injury front this year.....next year we could lose Wilson, Thomas, and Unger and be screwed.

Also, like someone else said, even if you lost all 4 games (unlikely, unless incredibly unlucky with scheduling), you still have 12 to recover. If we lost Sherm and Browner for 4 games, and we go and lose 2 more, we're most likely out of the playoffs unless we get a lot of help.

I can agree that I don't think this team is ready for a deep playoff run, and the way we're playing, I guess I could also see this year as beneficial. You could make negative or positives out of any of it.

Fuzzman55 wrote:Next year. I want to go to the playoffs and having our starting corners obviously gives us the best chance. It's shortsighted, but I'll worry about getting off to a good start in the offseason.

But starting 0-4 next year hurts NEXT year's playoff chances pretty significantly. Browner and Sherman are still going to be crucial to this defense next year, regardless of whom we add in the offseason.

Fuzzman55 wrote:Next year. I want to go to the playoffs and having our starting corners obviously gives us the best chance. It's shortsighted, but I'll worry about getting off to a good start in the offseason.

But starting 0-4 next year hurts NEXT year's playoff chances pretty significantly. Browner and Sherman are still going to be crucial to this defense next year, regardless of whom we add in the offseason.

What's your preference then?

Who knows how next year will pan out. We may not be in the hunt next year at this time of the season regardless of if they play or not.

Fuzzman55 wrote:Next year. I want to go to the playoffs and having our starting corners obviously gives us the best chance. It's shortsighted, but I'll worry about getting off to a good start in the offseason.

But starting 0-4 next year hurts NEXT year's playoff chances pretty significantly. Browner and Sherman are still going to be crucial to this defense next year, regardless of whom we add in the offseason.

True, but I'm not much of a believer in the "4 year plan" hype. You get what you can get in this league and never take anything for granted. Who knows, the Hawks could be significantly better next year and more capable of weathering the losses. And with a young team like ours, maybe gaining a year of playoff experience helps us take the next step. All I'm saying is next year is beyond anyone's predictions or control.

this year. don't seahawks have backups, they did plan for if one of these guys got hurt right... both down well that's a whole different story... good news is, only one of our apponents players can score at a time... since we're not stopping anything these days, might as well be a reciever..

I'd go with this year. Even with the two CBs playing, beating the Bears is a tall order, and SF didn't need to air it up top to have us outmatched. Lose those two and your playoff chances are a lot smaller. Of course, I hope we win out, but a bookmaker would probably give us a 9-7 finish, at most, from here.

We can't guarantee who'll be on the team for next season, much less what chance it'll have, Why give it a handicap on top?